So Little Time (25 page)

One morning, for instance, at a section meeting of a large elementary course, which he learned years later was known as a “necktie course,” there were a hundred or so students waiting when the section man came in and laid his books and papers on the desk. The section man, young and handsome, dressed in tweeds, spoke in a weary voice.

“I suppose,” he said, “that most of you, like me, were at the dance last night at the Plaza.”

The Plaza and the dances were unknown to Jeffrey then.

“It may be,” the section man went on, “although I hope for your sakes it is not the case, that a great many of you feel the way I do this morning. Anyone who was at the ball last night may leave now, and take a walk in the fresh air, or do anything else he may think proper—anyone who was at the ball.”

The room was filled with applause and merry stamping, and two thirds of the students left the room while the section man watched them, smiling. Those who were left were the plain boys, the last pieces of candy in the box, and Jeffrey was among them. He still could remember their anxious serious features, their hunched shoulders and their shining elbows. The section man's glance passed slowly over them, and then he smiled.

“So you weren't at the ball last night,” he said. “Well, we'll go on. We'll talk about something that does not require too much effort.”

When you were young, of course you accepted the environment in which you lived and which was beyond your power to change. It sometimes seemed to Jeffrey that his father must have always accepted it, living incuriously just where he was, not successfully, but placidly. Occasionally in the evenings, when Jeffrey was back from college, his father would talk to him about getting ahead. It was only later that Jeffrey realized that the Old Man knew nothing much about this except in theory. When he was Jeffrey's age, he got a job in Mr. Wilkins' Real Estate and Insurance office, and when Mr. Wilkins died, he had gone right on with it from there. That was virtually all he ever told Jeffrey about himself, but sometimes he spoke of Jeffrey's mother. “She was a mighty pretty girl,” he said once. “You can tell it from her picture.” But that was about all he said. Perhaps he did not want to talk about her, or perhaps he thought that Jeffrey knew of her already.

“Everybody has a chance in this country,” he said once. “If you work hard and are honest, you'll get where you want to get.”

The town and home meant much more to Jeffrey than anything he learned at college. Later when he heard people talk of the democracy of the small town, he knew it was a half truth, because a small town was actually a complicated place, with social gradations which one accepted without being entirely aware of them. There were people who lived on Center Street whom his father spoke to with a special tone, such as the Thompsons and the Nestleroades and the Barneses. And then there were people like themselves and Dr. Adams and Mr. Pratt who ran the clothing store. And then there were people whom his father referred to as “scrubs,” the workers in the carpet mills and the employees in the shoeshop and the people who did odd jobs.

When Jeffrey walked up Center Street, he always had an uneasy feeling. The houses there had striped awnings in the summertime and there were round flower beds on the lawns. They kept watering the lawns on Center Street with sprinklers that whirled around, and the Thompsons and the Nestleroades had automobiles. That was where Louella lived—on Center Street. Sometimes on Saturdays he would meet her downtown and he would always take off his hat quickly and smile. Sometimes he would see her at church on Sundays but he never thought of talking to her, and he never called on Louella until the spring of his last year at college.

He was taking a course on the English Novel that year and it was a hard course for him because it was necessary to read and read. First there was Samuel Richardson's
Clarissa
, and then
The Castle of Otranto
and
Roderick Random
and
Joseph Andrews
, dealing with phases of English life which were completely beyond the scope of his imagination. When they reached the Victorians, it was not much simpler for him. The people in
Middlemarch
or
David Copperfield
or
Vanity Fair
never could fit into his surroundings. It was grim work for him, always, acquiring an education against the narrow background of his own experience.

One Saturday close to the time for the final examination he went to the Bragg Public Library to borrow Meredith's
Diana of the Crossways
. Years later when he heard someone say that Meredith was a young man's writer, his mind went back to his efforts with
Diana of the Crossways
up in the hall bedroom where he lived in Cambridge during the week. When he tried to read
Diana
again he seemed to be back sitting on that iron bed of his that smelled faintly of kerosene, listening to the trolley cars on Massachusetts Avenue. He had that old feeling that he must finish it and remember it, that he must make notes on the physical appearance of all the characters because that was the sort of question which would be on the examination.

The public library was a brick building, like the Town Hall, but smaller. To the left was the reading and periodical room, to the right Miss Jacobs sat behind her desk with the catalogues in their golden-oak cases and with three lilacs in a vase in front of her. The room smelled of floor oil and of books arranged along the wall and in alcoves.
Diana of the Crossways
was there in the catalogue, and Miss Jacobs told him that he could find it himself over by the window.

“Well,” Miss Jacobs said, “you're quite a stranger.”

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I'm just home Saturdays and Sundays.”

“I see your father and your aunt,” Miss Jacobs said. “They say they haven't heard from Alf.”

“No,” Jeffrey said, “Alf doesn't write much.”

“Dear me,” Miss Jacobs said, “how everybody flies away.”

Then there was a footstep behind him and the light glinted on Miss Jacobs' glasses.

“Why, hello,” Miss Jacobs said, “here's someone else who's quite a stranger.”

Jeffrey stepped away from the desk, holding
Diana of the Crossways
. It was Louella Barnes.

Jeffrey sometimes wondered later what he would have been like if there had been anything in his youth to promote self-confidence or self-assurance—if he had ever owned a suit of clothes that had cost more than fifteen dollars, if he had gone to one of the preparatory schools or had played football, or if his father had owned a car which he had been allowed to drive. It was always a difficult and thankless game to stack the decks of the cards which had been dealt in the past, for there was no way of telling whether he would have been better or worse for it. But he was sure of one thing, he would not have felt that Louella Barnes was an unapproachable vision that afternoon. He would have possessed some standard for comparison. He would have placed her in a gallery of other girls whom he had met. It did not mean, of course, that he was entirely without experience. He had been on picnics with Alf and with girls Alf knew, but they were noisy and provocative and they smelled of musk and perfume. They were not nice girls like Louella Barnes. If he had known more, if he had “loosened up” as Alf often advised him, that vision of Louella in the library might not have been quite so compelling. As it was, no one living was ever like the Louella Barnes that he saw that afternoon.

She was standing by Miss Jacobs' desk, and the light of the window in the alcove just behind her put her face in the shadow, but it made a glow on her yellow hair, which was done up in a tight, uncompromising knot just below her little hat. She wore a gray tailored suit with the frills of a shirtwaist in front. Her lisle stockings looked almost like silk, and she wore low tan shoes with high heels. She was like Beatrix Castlewood walking down the stairs. All sorts of thoughts like that passed through Jeffrey's mind. It was the first time in his life that his academic studies had assumed any practical significance. She was like Botticelli's Spring, she was like Milton's pagan nymphs.…

He did not want to look at her for more than a brief instant. Instead he backed slowly away from Miss Jacobs' desk and gazed intently at two posters on the wall behind her. One was a British Tommy, saying that England expected every man to do his duty, and the other was of a French poilu saying “
On les aura
.”

“Oh, Miss Jacobs,” Louella said, “doesn't the library look nice?”

“That's sweet of you to say it,” Miss Jacobs said. “We try to keep it nice.”

Jeffrey was still staring at the posters, trying to detach himself from the group, wondering whether he should speak to her first, or whether she would speak to him.

“Why,” Louella said, “if it isn't Jeffrey Wilson. Hello, Jeffrey.”

She was holding out her hand to him. He forgot that he was holding
Diana of the Crossways
and when he tried to shift it over, it fell with a flop on the brown linoleum floor.

“Oh,” he said, “hello, Louella.” And then he stooped to pick it up. He felt the blood rushing to his face as he stooped and he knew that his coat was too tight behind and his trousers were binding. But Louella was still speaking.

“Father wants to know,” Louella was saying, “if it's time for him yet to have
Letters from America
”

Miss Jacobs opened a drawer in her desk and consulted a white sheet of paper.

“If Mr. Barnes wants it,” Miss Jacobs answered, “we'll just forget that anyone's ahead of him if he brings it back on Monday.”

“That's dear of you,” Louella said, “thank you, Miss Jacobs.”

“Besides,” Miss Jacobs said, “there's no one else ahead on Center Street.” She tapped a little bell on her desk.

“Walter,” she called, “Walter!” Miss Jacobs' voice dropped to a kind and gentle murmur: “We have Walter Newcombe now. He's a West Ender who dusts books and tidies, when he's back from Dartmouth.”

Miss Jacobs meant that the three of them standing at the desk, although they might not all come from Center Street, were certainly not West Enders.

“Oh.” Louella also lowered her voice.

There was no time for an answer because the door at the end of the main room opened. Walter Newcombe was a gangly boy of seventeen, who obviously knew he was a West Ender. His hair was not brushed, and his nose was shining.

“Walter,” Miss Jacobs said, “get
Letters from America
, please.”

“Who wrote it, ma'am?” Walter asked.

“Rupert Brooke,” Miss Jacobs told him, very gently indicating that West Enders never knew things like that. Jeffrey knew that he should be going, but if he left he would not hear Louella speak again.

“How does it feel to be a college girl?” Miss Jacobs asked.

Louella gave a deprecating laugh.

“College girls are just the same as other girls,” she said. “At least, I feel the same, and this is my last year.” And she looked at Jeffrey and smiled.

“A college boy and a college girl,” Miss Jacobs said, “right together in the library at once. My, it's quite a day.”

She did not seem to think of Walter as a college boy. Jeffrey knew that they were both expecting him to say something and he cleared his throat, but he was spared the effort, because Walter Newcombe was back.

“Give it to Miss Barnes, Walter,” Miss Jacobs said. “I won't bother to stamp it, because I
know
you'll bring it back on Monday.”

Anyone would have known who saw Louella smile.

“Thank you, Miss Jacobs, it's sweet of you,” she said. “Well, good-by.”

Jeffrey did not know exactly what to do, but there was no reason for him to stay because he also had his book.

“Well,” he said, “it's time I was going. Good-by and thank you, Miss Jacobs.”

He thought Louella would walk out first, but she waited for him, and they walked down the hall together. He lunged forward and opened the door for her.

“What's the book you're reading?” Louella asked.

“Just a tough old book,” he said, “
Diana of the Crossways
by George Meredith.”

“Oh,” Louella said, and she nodded with knowing sympathy. “It must be the English Novel course. We have it too, at Smith.”

“It's sort of hard to understand,” Jeffrey said. “Well—”

He stopped, and Louella stopped, too. They had come to the end of the library path.

“It's just the right afternoon for iced tea, isn't it?” Louella said.

“What?” Jeffrey asked her.

“Iced tea,” Louella said. “I've got some made. Wouldn't you like to have some on the porch?”

It took a moment to grasp that she was asking him to accompany her to her home to have iced tea, asking him to walk with her up Center Street and right to her front porch. His common sense told him that he ought to take it casually and so he framed his words carefully in his head before he spoke them.

“I wouldn't mind some iced tea at all,” he said.

The new leaves of the maple trees on Center Street were all yellowish green, but he was not thinking of the leaves. He was thinking that his trousers were baggy. He was wondering what the people on Center Street would be saying when they saw him walking with Louella Barnes without a hat.

“May I carry your book for you?” he said.

“Oh, no,” she answered, “it's very light.” He did not want to snatch for it, but he knew that it would not look right unless he carried the book.

“I'm not as delicate as that,” she said. “I'm not just a Dresden china affair.” But she had handed him the book.

Her heels tapped sharply on the brick walk beneath the maple trees. She was almost as tall as he was, but not quite, and he wished that his trousers were pressed. He wanted her to see that she had made no mistake in asking him to walk home with her.